Research
I seek to reimagine how organizational structures, policies, and practices can create more justice-oriented and equitable experiences and outcomes for all faculty, staff, and students.
I humbly approach my research agenda centering the perspectives of participants to critically examine systemic and organizational structures to create inclusive and equitable experiences and outcomes for all faculty, staff, and students in higher education. I utilize my significant coursework in organizational theory and public policy, along with my prior professional experience to shape a research agenda that meets rigorous scholarly standards and can be applied to improve higher education organizations and practice.
I research questions related to three areas of inquiry that implicate higher education organizations as both a barrier and catalyst to social stratification and mobility:
Student Access & Success
How can institutions of higher education create more equitable organizational contexts, policies, and practices to recruit, enroll, teach, and graduate historically and socially marginalized students?
Academic Careers & Leadership
How can higher education organizations more equitably create leadership pathways for underrepresented faculty and staff?
Organizational Theory & Research
How can scholars and practitioners utilize and advance organizational theory and research to create more equitable experiences and outcomes for socially marginalized and systemically disadvantaged faculty, staff, and students in higher education?
I use multiple methodologies to answer questions that are a part of my research agenda. I have developed research skills in qualitative data collection and analysis, specifically using focus group and individual interview techniques both in-person and virtual. In addition, I employ phenomenological, grounded theory, and narrative inquiry approaches to research design and data analysis. While most of my research is qualitative in nature, I have advanced training in quantitative methodologies through coursework in Regression Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling and from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICSPR) Summer Program in Network Analysis and Categorical Data Analysis.
Due to my commitment of translating rigorous research into practical application, I have collaborated and been affiliated with interdisciplinary research centers with similar aims:
- National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Relational Coordination Collaborative at Brandeis University
- The Centre for Social Mobility at the University of Exeter (UK)
- Relational Coordination Research Collaborative at the University of New Hampshire (formerly Brandeis University)
presenting at the 2018 NCORE in New Orleans.
University of Exeter, England.
Jeffrey K. Grim 